General Election 2010

I live in a ward that is a safe Labour seat, and that trailing that are the Tories, no-one else is in with a chance of achieving more than 5% of the vote in the ward. My vote will not go to either Labour or Tories, and unless I'm voting for them the current system means my vote is wasted under the winner-takes-all system.

I don't want to do the "tactically vote blah to prevent blah blah" rubbish, I want to vote for something I believe in, but yet I know that a wasted vote is truly wasted. I feel extremely disillusioned by the whole thing and I realise that as my stance is utterly pointless that I can either opt to not vote, and thereby face the "you didn't partake so you don't get a say" argument, or to register this feeling as best I can and hope that some statistical analysis at least raises the question "why are these people spoiling their papers?". Unfortunately the way things are going not voting actually seems wiser as electoral reform seems to be happening to reverse the decline in participation... so as I've said, I may very well not participate at all, this is just in conflict with what I desperately want to do which is to be heard and included in the political process... hence, spoiling the paper.

The whole thing just makes me miserable. All I want is to live in the belief that voting actually matters. But if you're in a safe seat for someone, and if the only other contender (by a major swing) still isn't your choice... then frankly you might as well just go to work and enjoy the day.

"I want to vote for something I believe in."

Good luck with that.